Equipping & Encouraging Sunday School and Small Group Leaders

3 ways to use a New Members’ Class to boost your Sunday School

This past Sunday I had the privilege of leading the Discovery Class. It’s the name of the potential new members’ class at the church where I’m serving as Education Minister. We did not anticipate the overwhelming response we received – 30 people attended the 3 hour Sunday morning class! You can see some of the actual photos in this blog post.

One reason we have launched this new class in 2018 is to boost the church’s Sunday School ministry. I thought I’d share some ways we are using the class to help grow the Sunday School ministry of Fair Haven Baptist Church in Shelbyville, Tennessee:

Encourage people to take the next step – Sunday School is the “step 2” ministry in many of our churches (if your church calls it something else, just substitute that name here!). When I say it’s a “step 2” ministry, I’m referring to the fact that in most of our churches, the first step people take is to attend worship. For many people that’s all they do. I told the participants that we want them to take a second step – and step into one of our smaller circles of people that we call Sunday School classes. Sometimes people just need to be told the next step to take, and this is our way of clarifying our involvement process.

Talk about security and training – As people are deciding on a church to join, they need to know about your church’s plan for security. I was able to explain the check-in/check-out system we have in place for kids, and I talked about our on-campus security team that is trained to keep everyone safe while they are on campus. I then told the participants that we have a plan for year-round, ongoing training for our group leaders, and that if they trusted us with their kids (and themselves), they could be assured that the people in leadership are on the cutting edge of trained leaders in our area. In fact, because of our ongoing plan for training, they are probably the best trained leaders in our city. I like people who are considering church membership to know that. 🙂

Plant a leadership seed – During the Discovery Class, I showed the participants a list of their Sunday School class options. I talked about the new groups we’ve already started this past year, and how we added a second Sunday School hour back in October 2017. I let them know that we are in a growth posture, and that if they chose to join the church, we would need many of them to step up and lead a group. I want them thinking about that even before they officially commit to the church.

So there you have it – 3 easy ways to let your new member class give Sunday School a boost!

Ken Braddy posted: “This past Sunday I had the privilege of leading the Discovery Class. It’s the name of the potential new members’ class at the church where I’m serving as Education Minister. We did not anticipate the overwhelming response we received – 30 people attended “